Organizer attracts cash, GOP criticism

DAN FREEDMAN, Copyright 2004 Hearst News Service

Published 5:30 am, Thursday, July 29, 2004

BOSTON - Few have helped gather more grass-roots campaign cash to benefit Democrats this year than Steve Rosenthal. At 51, he's a veteran organizer, agitator and politico on behalf of labor unions and liberal causes.

As chief executive officer of America Coming Together, Rosenthal leads an army of canvassers deployed in 15 swing states to get out the vote for Kerry and other Democrats. Along the way they've raised nearly $30 million and vow to at least triple that amount.

But Republicans find Rosenthal's appearance at the convention suspicious at the very least. The money that he and leaders of other independent political groups are allowed to raise and spend under new campaign finance laws is only legal as long as they don't coordinate their activities with political campaigns and parties.

So as Rosenthal's group woos big contributors this week at the posh Four Seasons Hotel, ACT's critics, including Republicans and some campaign finance reform advocates, smell a rat.

Rosenthal dismisses such complaints, saying ACT is keeping its distance from the party and the Kerry campaign. He recounted how he avoided Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill at a recent wedding involving a mutual friend, and how he had a lawyer review the legality of his teenage children volunteering at the convention.

"We're building a wall between what we're doing and what they're doing," he said. "We have nothing to offer anybody, no tickets to the convention, no skyboxes, not even a mug. All we have to offer is the ability to change this country and bring people into the political process."

ACT's presence at the convention is "a total abuse of the law that we passed," said Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., a co-author of the 2002 campaign finance reform law. "These guys are running campaigns and they should be under the campaign finance law. What they're doing is so blatant — it just blows me away."

The law ended the practice of wealthy donors, corporations and labor unions giving big-dollar donations to the political parties. But it spawned dozens of groups like Rosenthal's, commonly called 527s for the section of the tax code that defines them.

Those groups, which include MoveOn, have raised more than $100 million from unregulated donations in the past year. Much of it will go toward independent advertisements supporting Kerry or opposing President Bush.